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Martha Rosenberg is an award-winning investigative public health reporter who covers the food, drug and gun industries. Her first book, Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, is distributed by Random House. Rosenberg has appeared on CSPAN and NPR and lectured at medical schools and at the Mid-Manhattan Public Library.

Saturday, August 1, 2015(3 comments)$1000 a Pill? Yes Says Big Pharma.
To stay a Wall Street darling, Pharma is rolling with new, uber priced drugs notably hepatitis C drugs that cost $1000 a pill. Gilead Sciences sold $12.4 billion worth of its hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi, at that price last year, reports the New York Times "straining the budgets of insurance companies and Medicaid programs."

Monday, June 29, 2015(4 comments)They Are Eating What in Yulin China?
Supporters of the Yulin dog meat festival charge that critics are hypocrites. "What about the consumption of beef when cows are considered sacred in India, they say, or guinea pigs in Latin America, or dogs in Korea or turkeys in the United States?" they ask

Saturday, June 13, 2015(2 comments)We're Eating WHAT? Mad Cow Reported in Ireland as US ban is Lifted
Even as the U.S. lifts its 15-year import restriction on beef from Ireland (which was ground zero during mad cow scares) a likely new case of mad cow, BSE, has turned up in Ireland. Both Norway and Canada are also reporting cases of mad cow disease which they call atypical.

Monday, June 1, 2015(11 comments)Do You Have Binge Eating Disorder? Big Pharma Hopes So
More than two thirds of U.S. adults are now overweight and it is fair to say that almost all of them overeat. The average U.S. refrigerator is opened 50 times a day, probably correlated with TV ads

Wednesday, May 27, 2015(7 comments)Don't Fall for These Food Front Groups
Food front groups sometimes called Astroturf are created by Big Food to keep health and safety regulations from cutting into sales and profits. Monsanto is a big funder

Tuesday, May 19, 2015(28 comments)White Supremacy Goes To The Very Top Of The NRA
White supremacists and hate groups are some of the nation's biggest gun advocates. Like the NRA itself, which calls a registry and universal background checks the first step to a government takeover, they preach insurrection and stockpiling weapons against impending government tyranny

Wednesday, May 6, 2015(1 comments)Humor-- Rail Rage A growing Social Problem
When a train is approaching and you need to add money to your fare card fast, people who've never used the fare card machines decide it's time to learn--now. Behind them are people with borderline obsessive compulsive disorder depositing a decade's worth of nickels one at a time.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015(1 comments)Unqualified NIDA Director Should Step Down
The signature symptom of addiction is "denial" which is why no alcoholic or addict would voluntarily take Volkow's vaccine (and why Antabuse/ disulfiram fails for most people).

Tuesday, April 21, 2015(1 comments)Deciphering Detox Therapies
Do "detox" diets and preparations really work? Doctors and health care practitioners do not agree. While almost everyone agrees that the environment is rife with pesticides, heavy metals, chemicals and endocrine disrupters that can store in the human body--especially its fat--how to cleanse the body of the toxins is the subject of great disagreement.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015(3 comments)Humor: Who Are These Old People at My Class Reunion?
In science there is a concept called the "survivorship bias." It refers to the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process while overlooking those that did not survive because they are hidden. One of the best examples of "survivorship bias" is the class reunion.

Sunday, April 12, 2015(2 comments)We Don't Know How Bird Flu Is Spreading--Factory Farmers
Like the piles of dead piglets a few months ago,, factory farmers don't want the press to cover the thousands--maybe a million--dead turkeys. They don't consumers asking a lot of nosey questions about how meat is raised

Wednesday, April 8, 2015(8 comments)It's a Scary World For Gun Advocates
Ever notice how gun advocates are afraid of everything? Maybe they need psychological help not lethal weapons

Monday, April 6, 2015(1 comments)We are eating WHAT?
What if you took a spoonful of your morning cereal and had an allergic reaction or even felt tranquillized? But when you looked at the package labeling there were no ingredients that would seem to be red flags? Increasingly, thanks to an FDA loophole, food makers use additives and chemicals that they and not the FDA have declared "safe" and the ingredients do not appear on the labels.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015(1 comments)Bone Drug--Another Wonder Drug That Wasn't
The bone drug market opened up for the drug industry 12 years ago when the hormone replacement drugs women were taking to prevent fractures were found to increase their risks of cancer and heart disease. Bisphosphonates like Fosamax and Boniva (the latter, advertised by actress Sally Field) were quickly substituted as a way for women to keep their bones strong and stay young looking.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015(6 comments)Have You Fallen for These Big Pharma Tricks?
Long before the Internet and direct to consumer advertising, the medical profession tried to reassure people about their health concerns. Sure fatigue and headaches could be a symptom of a brain tumor; sure a cough could be a symptom of lung cancer--but most doctors tried to assuage not sow fear. Remember "take two aspirins and call me in the morning"?

Sunday, February 8, 2015(4 comments)Brave New Food Animals--Part II
"You don't have to be a vegan to be repulsed by an account in The Times revealing the moral depths to which the federal government -- working as a handmaiden to industrial agriculture -- has sunk in pursuit of cheaper meat and fatter corporate profits," wrote the Times in a follow-up editorial.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015(5 comments)Another Toddler Shoots His Mother
"Carrying" has become so accepted, people treat their guns like cell phones. Look what happens.

Sunday, February 1, 2015(10 comments)Is the Age of McDonald's Over?
In fact the very things people used to like about McDonald's--fast, cheap, plentiful, predictable food--have become the features that are working against it.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015(2 comments)Brave New Animals Exposed by New York Times Are Tip of Iceberg
Did you read this week's New York Times' expose about the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center's experiments to help the meat industry make animals more "profitable"? The Center's experiments, funded by our tax dollars, combine the worst of factory farming with the worst of animal research. And the cruelty, which horrifies even veterinarians, is to help private industry, Big Meat, with public funds. What?

Friday, January 2, 2015(1 comments)What Sex Drugs Are on the Horizon for 2015?
Whether ED, HSSD (hypoactive sexual desire disorder) or PE, there is clearly money to made in sex enhancement drugs. Less clear is whether the drugs work, are safe or will save a troubled relationship.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014(2 comments)Merry Christmas From The Oil Industry
From BP's catastrophe to this week's spill in the Black Sea near the port of Tuapse, the oil industry shamelessly continues its assault on the environment

Tuesday, December 23, 2014(5 comments)How Big Pharma Made Antipsychotics Everyday Drugs
Does anyone remember Thorazine? It was an antipsychotic given to mentally ill people, often in institutions, that was so sedating, it gave rise to the term "Thorazine shuffle."